Eye contact is next teeping opportunity 6 February 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: 12seconds.tv, cisco, pelican imaging, pixim, santa cruz imaging, teeping, telecommunications industry association, telepresence, tia
4 comments
Telepresence is to teleconferencing as dining is to eating. One is a mechanical process, the other transforms the simple act into a complete social experience. Or so the hope goes.
Also known as teeping, the idea is to create a completely immersive environment where you forget that the person you’re talking with is not physically present. Cisco is pushing this technology hard, but hasn’t crossed the line from teleconference to telepresence.
Cisco's would-be telepresence facility
I spent some time in a Cisco telepresence demo room this week, during a small business symposium co-hosted by the TIA and Cisco. It’s a cool system that will eventually lead to a true teeping solution.
On the plus side, Cisco has optimized the mechanics. Camera and screen placement, conference table set up, lighting and audio are all dialed in. You can sit down and look across your table at people sitting on what looks like the other side of the room.
Part of the trick is the way the physical layout adds the illusion of depth to the flat images on the large high def screens. In a few years, 3D video technology will make it seem spooky real, but the current system gives your brain sufficient cues to start filling in the missing dimension.
Teeping opportunity demo on 12seconds.tv
The final, great hurdle is enabling two-way eye contact. Until that’s possible, it’ll be teleconferencing, not telepresence. Right now, you have a choice: look into the camera, or look into the other person’s eyes.
The current iteration lets you see body language, which is a huge step forward. But our brains are hardwired for eye contact, and you can’t connect person to person with a stranger without it.
Case in point: when I’m riding my bicycle in traffic and I want to make sure a driver sees me, I look right into his eyes. We can both be wearing sunglasses — it doesn’t matter. Our primitive, hunter-gatherer brains instantly grasp the presence of a fellow human and go into “friend or foe” mode. It’s the same whether you’re running across the savannah or sitting in a corporate meeting. A split second of two-way eye contact determines whether you’re going to share lunch or be lunch.
A solution to this problem starts with some kind of eyeball tracking system, which determines where each participants’ eyes are focused on the screen. Software would then manipulate each individual’s image so that people on the other side of the conversation accurately perceive that individual’s gaze.
This solution requires huge computational capacity and magic software, rather than raw bandwidth, so Cisco won’t solve it. But Cisco and any other aspiring teeping vendor will snap it up in an eye-blink. So who has the chops to do it?
At this month’s Santa Cruz New Tech MeetUp, two of the presenters discussed exactly this kind of image manipulation. Pixim does real-time enhancement of video feeds, mostly for security applications at this point, and Pelican Imaging is developing computational cameras that can manipulate static, 2D images through three dimensions. The event’s sponsor, Santa Cruz Imaging, is also actively developing technology in this space.
In five, maybe ten years, brute force corporate R&D will solve this problem. Until then, it’s a genuine geek opportunity.
Live from CES, Friday, 9 January 2009 9 January 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: ceatec, CES, cisco, consumer electronics show, Intel, kiva, microfinance, murata, nissan
2 comments
OK, she can ride. But can she swim and run?
Last to first, real-time tweets from Las Vegas
Ho-Hum IPTV is Software Dev Opportunity 8 January 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: CES, cisco, consumer electronics show, content navigation, hard disk drive, iptv, netgear, software, solid state drive, sony
add a comment
Internet protocol television is the it’s-good-to-be-boring story of CES 2009. Everyone (or nearly so), from Netgear to Sony, integrates some kind of IPTV functionality in their consumer product lines. It’s going from being a distinct and geeky category to just being a standard feature of mainstream television products.
It’s good news for software developers and component manufacturers. Drive manufacturers, to pick one example, have an opportunity to sell their products into television sets, more set top boxes (not just DVRs), and home media centers.
There’s a window of opportunity opening briefly for software developers. No one has completely solved the twin problems of navigating and storing content. Boxee offers an open source users interface. It could turn into a common development platform, but only because it’s open source.
"Linksys by Cisco" is company's latest consumer branding strategy. It doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, but it's a start.
Storage isn’t a technical problem. Hard drives are big and cheap, and solid state drives are rapidly heading in that direction. The problem is finding and accessing your stuff, once you’ve downloaded it to one device and you want to access it on another.
Cisco introduced a home media hub, that they say can catalog all the media on your local network, plus manage Internet media sources. It includes a big hard drive, which you can use to store your stuff, but that’s almost incidental. If it really works — for ordinary consumers, not just for technophiles — it’s a big step forward in solving the navigation and storage problem.
A real killer app has yet to appear, though. Most manufacturers are simply adding IPTV extensions to whatever content navigation and management platforms they already deploy. Any bets on whether that will be enough?
Live from CES Press Day, 7 January 2009 7 January 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: australia, CES, cisco, ericsson, flacks, german, Intel, japanese, lg, linksys, microsoft, netgear, new zealand, sony, t-mbile, tagolog, tmobile, toshiba, verizon, vodafone
add a comment
Last to first, real time tweets from Las Vegas…
- Bill Gates is the UrGeek. Love or hate him, he’s an original with historic scope. Heroic in classical sense. Ballmer…
- Listening to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. Microsoft will rule the world. Honest.
- Sony shows great respect for mobile telecom carriers. Has WiFi Walkman in pipeline, but no 3/4G product that would cause consternation for Sony Ericsson’s mobile carrier customers.
- Sony sez not in negotiations for NZ/Australia mobile carrier deals for netbook, sorry Lifestyle PC, but GSM deals in Europe are locked.
- Even so, Sony netbook, sorry Lifestyle PC, is way cool. 600 grams, 20 cm screen. Uses Windoze OS but has a Linux bios & can boot either way.
- Sony intros netbook, sorry Lifestyle PC. $900. Includes wireless data card. Verizon deal for US, T-Mobile, Vodafone in EU. Nothing in New Zealand or Australia. Sorry, mate.
- Of course, Sony is cautious. Sony Ericsson is in bed with, and enthusiastically servicing, mobile telecom carriers.
- For CES, Sony divides its business into “in-home” & “out-of-home”. But out-of-home is mobile carrier-friendly, not consumer-focused.
- A couple words of Tagalog got me the sympathy of the bartender, though.
- My Japanese & German is an advantage at CES, Italian & Spanish no help.
- Lots of consumer-grade PR minions at what are supposed to be trade press-class events. Frustrating.
- Snuck a peek at Intel booth, heavy on mobile Internet & 4G, at least the WiMAX flavor.
- Cisco likes femtocell technology, puts it in the same bucket as WiFi. Interesting perspective.
- Steve Ballmer is tonight’s keynote, but here’s the advance scoop: Microsoft Bob is back!
- Apple it’s not but it’s a start for Cisco. They’ll need a lot of help though.
- Linksys by Cisco new consumer brand strategy, paying attention to product design now
- People started leaving, slid in for Q&A. Service provider guy talking about making networks video aware.
- Cisco PR kiddies say look it up on their website later. Duh.
- Cisco press conf overfull. Sent to watch a live web feed. Didn’t work. What business are they in?
- Line for Toshiba press conf too long. One way to manage reduced attendance is to book a smaller room.
- Sharp showing big displays. Really big.
- Line for Toshiba press conference out of control. Must be giving away free stuff.
- Netgear also showing IPTV player and home media center. Category is getting crowded, not much secret sauce anymore.
- Netgear has no deals with mobile carriers but sez they’ll appreciate increased data usage. Not convincing.
- CE guys determined to hang gizmos on mobile data networks: weeds in the walled garden!
- Streaming TV + tethered wifi router = bandwidth hell for carriers. CE guys are on the march!
- Netgear introing wifi router with slot for 3G data modem card. Sez 1 use is streaming TV.
- Skipped main event, checked out stuff afterwards. LG showing netbook, usual mobile phones, nice. Just nice.
- Line for LG press conf already strung out at 7:30am
Cisco is here to help. But whom? 7 January 2009
Posted by Steve Blum in Tellus Venture Associates.Tags: CES, cisco, consumer electronics show, linksys, t-mobile, tmobile
add a comment
Cisco builds stuff for service providers. They’re at CES primarily to talk about their latest effort to extend their brand into the consumer realm, but there’s no doubting they’re network guys to the core.
Interesting comment from their service provider group SVp & GM Tony Bates: they’re deploying technology that makes service provider networks video aware. Of course, it’s with the consumer’s best interests in mind. If a service provider knows that video is streaming through it’s network, it can take steps to optimize the consumer’s experience.
Yes. Absolutely true. On the other hand, they can take steps to downgrade the experience or charge more for it. From a technological capability perspective, anyway.
If mobile carriers are in fact under siege from consumer electronics manufacturers determined to sell mobile gizmos without the blessing of carriers, then Cisco could be in a position to craft a defense.
Cisco also makes a tethering product for T-Mobile, allowing consumers to sign up for wireless data service in the home. The product and attached service are under the control of T-Mobile, but it’s a more generous offering than most. So maybe there is a middle ground. Or maybe when you’re at the back of the pack, you’re willing to take more chances.
Still more to come from CES.
